


Lakshmanaa

by GlyphArchive



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Domestic Violence, Escape, Female Friendship, Marital Abuse, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23257036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlyphArchive/pseuds/GlyphArchive
Summary: A chance that might have been, had fortune smiled. And perhaps it did, in the end. She will always find a way to be free.
Relationships: Lakshmanaa/Samba (Hindu Religions & Lore), Pradyumna/Mayavati (Hindu Religions & Lore), Ulupi/Chitrangada (Mahabharata)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Lakshmanaa

Her fingers throbbed, after. Like she’d turned all her palm’s strength against hot coals or impervious stone and it was pure luck that her bones hadn’t simply cracked in the process. It hurt, but the sting behind it reminded her that she was alive; that she’d held her ground, and Lakshmana would take that tiny victory in both her hands and never let it go so long as she could.

This time no one’s blood spattered the ground but it had been a battle nonetheless and she was still a kshatriya even if she no longer touched her bow quite as often as she used to. An old fear whispered in the back of her mind that she would pay _dearly_ for this, for not bending as her husband wanted her to; that the next time it would be worse and she would have no one to blame but herself for what could happen.

Then she quashed that voice with bitter anger, ground it to silence between her teeth and picked her shaking frame up from the floor.

(She always shook, no matter how much she tried to fortify herself in these bouts. Her father and Karna had called it something like a battle fever, when the limbs were flooded with too much energy and had no direction to use it. She shook, yes, but _she lived she lived she lived_ – and that was no small thing)

Her hair was a mess and she would need to do something about the darkening patch of skin just under the rise of her collar where Samba’s hand had struck. Looking at herself in the burnished mirror she counted her own heartbeats as they slowed, meeting her own stare as she would no one else’s in Dwarka.

The face that looked back did not seem her own, anymore. But she’d developed her skill with paints and powders; could arrange herself to be pretty enough among the loveliness of her father-in-law’s kingdom.

* * *

(“Would I like Dwarka, Lord?” She’d asked once, blithe and unashamed that her eyes had been bright with interest. Not in _him_ , no – Krishna was beautiful in the distant too-painful way that the idols of gods possessed; but he was _also_ several decades her senior and a somewhat removed uncle-cousin besides. If the stories were true he’d been carousing the countryside and making alliances along with trouble years before her father and his hundred siblings had been born; and he’d only ever shown her a gentle fatherly affection in the few times she’d met him.

“You have many sons,” she’d added, swinging her feet lightly so that the backs of her heels lightly tapped her seat by the window. “How many condolences should I prepare, if my swayamvara proves too difficult for them?”

He’d hummed once, indulgent and soft the way uncles could be when humoring an impertinent question. But then he’d smiled and it seemed to brighten every bit of him from within, looking at her as though they were sharing a private joke as he’d passed her a slice of apple.

“You might come to love it, given time.” He’d said. “But we shall see. All the ocean would rest at your feet and its bounty yours, if you asked for it. You’d have as many sisters as stars in the sky; as your father does with his brothers.”

“I’ve never seen the sea.” She’d admitted quietly, biting into the apple and tasting only honey, only sweetness. “But I know how to swim. The ocean can’t be so different from the Ganga, I suppose.”

“You’ll learn the currents.” Krishna had replied, something different in his voice but not so alarming that it had given her pause; back then. “Trust in your own ability, if nothing else.”)

* * *

Satyabhama presided over the archery court as well as Rukmini did the tumultuous council of elders that the Yadavas preferred to single ministers; if with a more stern eye and the occasional strict reprimand. But she was fair to those who showed up, patient with beginners, and Lakshmanaa felt more welcome in her presence than she did with many of her other mothers-in-law.

(Jambavati had never been cruel to her, only quiet; somewhat reserved. Such was her nature, it seemed. And Jambavati was a nocturnal woman, awake during the day only when necessity demanded. Lakshmanaa could feel affection for her, as a daughter-in-law should; but under those dark eyes she felt as though a mountain pressed down upon her shoulders.)

“Your form is loose.” Satyabhama nudged her lightly, correcting the placement of her arms. When Lakshmanaa loosed her arrow it flew slightly wide, striking the outer edge of the target instead of its center. Satya glanced at the quivering fletching, then at her; sweat beading at her brow and curling loose strands of her hair against her skin. “Are you well?”

“Distracted.” It more than half-truth and Lakshmanaa could feel the twinge in her shoulder every time she nocked an arrow. “Shall I try again?” She asked, meeting Satya’s eye.

At least with her Lakshmanaa felt as though she were looking at a mortal woman. Rukmini might have been the kindest she’d met to date and withheld no amount of affection when they spoke, but Satyabhama flushed and labored and cursed as well as any of the family Lakshmanaa had left back in Hastinapur. Satya got angry, and she _showed_ it; she let none of her fame as the slayer of Narakasura dim her personality.

It was almost like being _home_ again, and the thought made her ache.

Satyabhama studied her with an eagle’s eye, but relented. “Stretch first. We can take an early break and go from there. If you’re still not feeling up to it, I know where a chariot is and you can come with me on an errand.” She smiled, quick and bright; and Lakshmanaa nodded, feeling hopeful.

* * *

“You went riding, I see.” Samba’s voice alone was enough to drag clawing tension up the curve of her back, but the weight of his stare turned her stomach. She looked at him only from her periphery, taking in the details. He leaned casually against the wall but there was no cup or jug in his hand. The lack of drink was not entirely reassuring – he was more dangerous sober than he’d ever been drunk, and she at least had the experience of countering a drunken man to rely on from her uncles’ many lessons.

(The benefit, perhaps, of having a small army of male relatives. Unorganized they could be in their squabbles but fiercely protective, and her father had made no secret that he preferred she know how to defend herself than rely on luck and situational chance to keep her safe.)

“Maa Satyabhama wished me to accompany her today.” She replied, debating putting the table between them just in case. It was heavy wood, laden with dishes for supper. Just looking at it made her muscles twinge in sympathy for whoever had been asked to carry into the house.

But then she’d watched with sick horror as her husband overturned fixtures twice the size of that table with no amount of trouble; as though stone, wood, and metal weighed no more to him than a feather. It would not keep her safe, if he was of a mind to be cruel.

(How fortune that she had been a student of great-uncle Shakuni as well and learned when to tip her hand and hedge her bets so that even if she were savaged at least she might come out alive.)

Samba pushed off the wall and came closer, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. “It’s good to see you get some sun for once. It suits you.” His hand lingered, fingers brushing her ear; then the back of her neck. Sober, clean, he seemed the mischievous-eyed young man who’d stolen victory at her swayamvara; grinning at her as the other contenders for her hand bristled, a hair away from violence.

She could almost find that man in his features, but it was dashed by the appraising look in his eyes; more calculating than affectionate, toeing the necessary line of civility. He’d never tried to paint himself as anything else but what he was, by turns so charming no one could think to question him or like a gale trapped in human skin; seeking only to destroy.

“Sit with me.” He drew back and Lakshmanaa remembered to breathe – _quietly_ , and moved to follow. When she folded herself into place beside him he tore off a section of roti and gathered up her favorite foods, offering them to her with steady fingers.

He was not the subtle sort for poison, lest it deny him the chance to watch the agony cross another’s face. She ate, but tasted nothing; reciprocating because it was better than the alternative.

“A letter came for you.” He told her once the meal was half done, generous mouth pulling to the side as he brushed a crumb from her cheek with disturbing gentleness. “From Hastinapur. It had your mother’s seal.”

Lakshmanaa hadn’t written her mother in years, not since her swayamvara had ended with aplomb and she’d thought she might at least be happy in the arms of a man who did not adhere to stifling caste rules and seemed as though he knew how to have fun with life. It might have been perfect, in a kingdom by the sea and a bewildering amount of mothers and sisters-in-law; busy enough that she could pretend she’d never left home at all.

At first she’d been happy, dizzy enough with it that writing had not seemed important just yet. Newlyweds, after all, could beg at least a year before being made accountable for themselves and remembering to send letters.

Then she’d been stunned, angry and sickly terrified; uncertain if any letter she penned would actually reach anyone she intended it to, if it did not pass through Samba’s hands first.

(“Your family,” he’d told her with calm certainty and a hateful smile when she first fought back, “live at the other end of the world, _priye_. What can they do, when you are already here and with me?”

She’d hated him, and still did; but he was also painfully correct.)

“I’ve seen no letter.” Dangerous to show interest in anything, be something besides a shadow to his footsteps and a pretty ornament when he decided to show her off; but Lakshmanaa loved her mother. “When did it arrive?”

“This morning.” Samba answered with a hum. He’d tipped his head to the side, and in candlelight seemed approachably soft. “The maid could not find you, and so left it with me.”

Cold dread turned the meal she’d eaten sour, opened up a hole in her being that drained any strength Lakshmanaa though she’d had.

“Would you like to read it?” He asked, studying her with that same appraising look; like whatever her response might be it could at least provide a thread of entertainment.

“If my Lord pleases.” She answered, willing her hands to remain still in her lap. He’d taken much from her, these past eight years. Her dignity, her health and no small amount of her confidence, the ability to sleep in peace, and even her love of archery if it had not been for Satyabhama. But she would not beg something from him, no matter how badly she might have desired what he withheld.

Her temper might have come from her father and received enough beatings to be curbed, but her stubbornness was purely her own; tracing roots through her family line even so far back as Satyavati, who’d challenged the world for her own destiny no matter the cost.

“Kiss me then.” Samba commanded softly, eyes half-lidded and playful. “Unless you’ve lost your taste for it?”

A pity she had not been born a man. At least then no one might have balked if she managed to kill him someday.

* * *

The princess Mayavati had a commanding air about her, filling a room with her presence even before she crossed the threshold of another’s door. Lakshmanaa had admired that about her sister-in-law, and naturally gravitated toward Mayavati as everyone else seemed to at some point or another; how moths might circle a flame or the stars bend to the sun’s pull. And yet Mayavati did not make her feel small, though it was easy in her worst moments to think herself inadequate; put beside Pradyumna’s chief wife who put just about every other beauty to shame and have wit to flay a thousand men in their seats to spare. Somehow they’d become friends, though Lakshmanaa could not have said whether it was a shared joy of archery, convenience, or some stroke of fate.

She knew nothing of the woman’s origins, found that it didn’t matter, and glued herself to Mayavati’s side whenever the opportunity allowed.

It helped that Mayavati also enjoyed riding, preferring to come and go as she pleased to staying within the bounds of Dwarka’s gleaming palaces and grid-like roads. Her horse was a stunning thing, and fast; watching her and Pradyumna race across fields or shores was as dizzying as it was terrifying.

“You should come with me to Manipur.” Mayavati remarked offhandedly, hair a wind-tossed mess and unabashed delight in her eyes. “It is further to the south, and warmer. You’d like its forests, I think.”

Manipur had few dealings with Hastinapur, but they had never truly been enemies. Lakshmanaa toyed with the idea as she ran her fingers through the mane of her horse; the appeal painfully strong. It would put her away from Samba, from Dwarka as a whole, and perhaps she might find the bravery to flee and not go back.

“You have friends in Manipur, _yuvarani_?” She asked quietly, not quite daring to raise her eyes. It was habit now, though she’d come to Dwarka with her head high and proud. “I’ve never been, in truth.”

“One might find friends anywhere they choose to look, my dear. Even in the most unexpected of places.” Mayavati sounded like she was smiling and it was tempting to look, just to see. “In passing I came to know their princess, if she is not already Queen, Chitrangada. The two of you would get on well, if you felt agreeable to a meeting.”

A part of her wondered how her sister-in-law might have, even in passing, come to know the crown princess of such a distant kingdom and be intimate enough to refer to her by name. But she could believe it, because all those who lived in Dwarka’s borders had their ways; either with charm or wit, or any number connections which had befuddled her father’s best spies for years. Rukmini had steadily built trust with Krishna through letters long before she’d ever married him. Satyabhama as a girl in Mathura hid refugees from Kamsa’s fury and treated their hurts, making sure gold found its way into the right hands and with enough frequency that somehow they’d been able to find true safety on the road and to other homes. Jambavati spoke the language of every beast and bird, though perhaps not as well as her father did; Kalindi knew every twist and turn of every river and inlet and could with intimidating certainty predict where the most harm or good could come from its moods or tempers.

Who was to say that Mayavati herself, delivered to Dwarka’s king and queen on a boat from some distant shore and hand-in-hand with the son they’d believed lost couldn’t have built similar connections of her own where it pleased her? Why not, when they were already surrounded by the fantastical on all sides?

“Would you have me?” Lakshmanaa brought herself to ask, the words scraping the walls of her throat. “It would be a long journey, wouldn’t it?”

“So?” This time she was certain of Mayavati’s smile, because she was barely restraining a laugh. “Who is to say we could not enjoy ourselves, and tarry a little while from our husbands?”

Some distant part of her wondered how Pradyumna might fare with that, but in all her experience the crown prince and princess had only looked at each other with deep affection and fondness. If there had ever been an unkind word between them Lakshmanaa had never heard it, never traced any thread of a story involving them which spoke of unhappiness.

There likely was a trace of it, somewhere, but folded away so neatly that no one but the people involved knew of it.

As for her own husband, Lakshmanaa suspected he might deny her the chance just to spite her. Or to try and provoke her into fighting him, as he’d done before.

“It would be an honor.” She opted for deference instead, pretending that it didn’t hurt quite so much as it did. “But I ought to ask permission first.”

“Or you could come with me.” Suddenly Mayavati was close, their knees almost brushing as her sister-in-law’s horse pawed at the ground. “It would be fun, to have a sister at my side when traveling.”

“Perhaps.” Lakshmanaa demurred, not looking up; ignoring the little flutter of hope lest it break apart. “I would like to, if such could remain between us.”

There was quiet for a moment and she felt a flash of fear that she’d finally done it and misspoke to one of her few allies, when Mayavati breathed out a quiet laugh. It sounded relieved, which more than anything is what tugged Lakshmanaa’s gaze up from the back of her horse’s neck to peer at her.

“No shame in wanting something.” Mayavati’s smile was wide and oddly victorious, like she’d expected a much harder fight or a flat refusal in the end.

* * *

Manipur welcomed them in a chorus of birdsong and the careful assessment of curious deer. The city itself was well-kept and fortified, less overpowering than Dwarka and Lakshmanaa had to remind herself that it was not necessary to squint so that her eyes wouldn’t be blinded by opulence. She’d spent every moment of the journey on alert, waiting for some trick; for Samba to appear and halt them at the gate, then the bridge connecting Dwarka to the mainland, then finally, the open fields past its borders.

It did not happen and he’d not come home the night before, which set her nerves taunt as a bowstring. She’d only been able to relax after the third evening they’d stopped to rest, tired from constant worry and finally starting to believe no calamity would strike them down.

Their retinue was composed of men in Pradyumna’s colors and some taken from the Narayani Sena. They’d kept a respectful distance thus far, occasionally trading jokes with Mayavati when spurred to it; and Lakshmana had fallen asleep without fear to the sound of the wind moving through the grass.

It struck her that morning that she could leave. Take her horse and go whichever way she pleased, be it to Manipur on her own or all the way back to Hastinapur or further. As far north as Kailash, if she wanted; though she had only attended her grandmother Gandhari’s pujas to Lord Shiva in passing. Even for those so blessed within Dwarka it could not be an easy task to find a single woman out of all the world, if she vanished. Even if Samba raged about it, any decision made would have to come from his father and the principal queens. Her own father might welcome her back eagerly enough, after almost a decade of no word; though he might initially be confused, then furious if he learned the truth.

_And what of your honor_ , a little voice ingrained by tutors whispered as she lay considering it; hardly daring to breathe lest it give her thoughts away. _A married woman who leaves her husband’s house has no place to go. Least of all to her birth family, where her father might be shamed. Even the gods frown about it, like the brahmins who your husband loves to mock with childish gaiety. You’ve bedded him and the whole of Dwarka can vouch for it, or that you have spent so long in his immediate company that no one else would ever have you; even if you did want them back._

The world over knew and could recite verbatim what that had done for Amba of Kashi and the long shadow it had cast over Hastinapur. Even if she did not go back to her family there was still the danger of the road, where one woman could make an easy target no matter her martial skill if the right opportunity presented itself.

_Does it matter_ , another voice; more familiar and one she’d missed, countered. Great-uncle Shakuni, with his soft undertones and knowing smile. She could almost hear the gentle clink of dice, a sound that had been comforting when she’d been little. _You live, and there are pieces yet in your hand. Manipur is far enough away that no eyes could report back to Samba and the news still be relevant once he’d processed it. Snap decisions are never good, in the long run. Study the board, place your bet and wait._

Eight years had finally provided this chance, unexpected and precious. She could wait a little more.

And then there was Manipur, hilly and shockingly quiet when she compared it to the organized chaos of Dwarka; let alone the dimmer memories of Hastinapur. The palaces were stone and in some places wood, tiered higher than the one she’d spent her marriage in but lower by far than her father’s palace. Chitrangada, in the clothes and armor of a man, reminded Lakshmanaa more of Satyabhama more and more as introductions went on; but it was the woman who held herself at the side of the throne which held Lakshmanaa’s eye.

Had she not breathed, she might have thought the tall woman a statue curiously placed; an impression reinforced by the fact that Lakshmanaa was certain she never blinked once during the greetings relayed. Then she’d moved, the long braid of her hair gently swaying like a great tail and Lakshmanaa felt certain those green eyes could see and pick apart every thought she’d ever had.

But she was not afraid.

_Mind the board_ , her great-uncle’s voice murmured, and Lakshmana coaxed her mouth into the semblance of a smile. _Wait._


End file.
